Will FD-SOI kick start Europe’s semiconductor expansion plans?

While it is likely to bring the performance increases demanded by a range of applications, FinFET has proved to be not quite as easy to manufacture as some expected. Intel is in the early stages of FinFET production at 14nm; Altera recently reported it has received test chips of FPGAs made on the process. TSMC, meanwhile, is said to be ramping 16nm FinFET production, aiming to open the process up to volume production towards the end of this year. Speaking earlier this year, Mark Liu, TSMC's co CEO, said 20 tape outs for 16FinFET based products are scheduled for 2014. Working more quietly in the background, STMicroelectronics has been developing another approach – fully depleted silicon on insulator, or FD-SOI. Where FinFET is targeted at performance, FD-SOI is designed to suit applications where power consumption is the major concern. But ST's problem has been that, while the process appears to be a contender, it doesn't have the capacity at its Crolles plant to push the technology into the mainstream. It can use FD-SOI for its own products, but that's it. Deals to provide that capacity were apparently cut with GlobalFoundries a while ago, but nothing appears to have developed. The agreement announced yesterday with Samsung changes that. But while Samsung has the foundry capacity to support the broader use of FD-SOI, the 'eco system' still needs to be rolled out, as highlighted by Jean-Marc Chery, ST's chief operating officer. "We foresee further expansion of the 28nm FD-SOI ecosystem to include the leading EDA and IP suppliers, which will enrich the IP catalogue available for 28nm FD-SOI." One of the $64k questions now being asked is whether FD-SOI could be the enabling technology for EC commissioner Neelie Kroes' plan to expand Europe's semiconductor manufacturing base and to grow market share to 20%. Might FD-SOI be the catalyst and might a European 450mm mega fab be the best place to offer the technology?